A G Electrical Services, a well-established father and son team based in Basingstoke, Hampshire decided it was time for a complete overhaul of their logo. My very first question was “why did they want to make such a drastic change?” Often companies fall in to the trap of changing for changes sake and end up destroying any recognition their brand has almost overnight. They explained that their current identity was very out-dated and amateur in appearance and didn’t advertise their business in the way they would like. Their requirement was for a more modern, professional approach that clearly represented their electrical business without using the cliché light bulb or lightening bolt.
Whilst I agreed that A G Electrical Services’ current logo design looked out-dated I didn’t want to just disregard it entirely as there might have been some elements worth keeping, which could be used in the new designs. As consumers, the more we see a brand the more memorable it becomes and over a period of time we can recognise a company simply through a colour or just a small portion of a letter. Therefore, even when a complete rebrand is desired it can be beneficial to see if anything can be kept from the old identity. This will help your existing clients quickly associate your new logo with your company, even if they don’t realise it’s happening!
In truth there was very little worth keeping in terms of the design, however I felt the colour combination of orange and black worked quite well together and would make a good starting point for the new logo. I began by sketching out some ideas, focusing on how I could illustrate their business without it looking too cliché, which was quite a challenge. After producing several ideas I really wasn’t happy with I tried a different approach and thought about how I could illustrate electricity as simply as possible. This eventually led me to the flowing wave shape, which the client loved and would become the main focus of the new logo.
The next step was to choose a corporate font; I wanted to continue the flowing feeling throughout the whole logo so I searched for half a dozen fonts that I felt best suited this approach. I submitted all six logo options to the customer and after much deliberation they opted for Dosis. Upon producing the final logo in several combinations of the original black and orange I felt that the colours no longer worked as well together. The orange looked great but the black was now too harsh for the design so I changed it to a slate grey instead, which everyone agreed worked much better. And so the new A G Electrical logo was complete.
